Saturday Dec. 13
The name Slithering Beast may conjure images of tight-pants-wearing hair-metal acts or a Republican in the midst, but the sound of Louisville's Slithering Beast is anything but.

Instead of family values or songs about dragons drinking champagne, the group is a country-rock powerhouse, churning out big chord changes and even bigger choruses, and it all comes from the brain of Nick Dittmeier.

"I was in bands, and I was really frustrated with playing in bands. So (Slithering Beast) is supposed to be, like, my solo thing. It's a full band, but it's essentially my solo project," Dittmeier says.

Rustic, almost ramshackle guitar strums sit alongside catchy, considered arrangements. The Slithering Beast aesthetic is on display on their latest album, Midnight Royalty. It's a homemade album in every sense, from the intimate and catchy sound to the location where they recorded.

"We bought equipment last winter, and we did the album in our practice space this past summer. We didn't stress out about the album. I wanted to sound natural rather than overproduced, and yet I wanted to have some pretty sound arrangements," Dittmeier says.

From the opening Chicago-like horns (that's a good thing) giving way to the Gram Parsons honky tonk of "It Just Don't Make Sense" to the Shins-meets-Sticky Fingers-era Stones of the album's closer "Moving On," Slithering Beast's album feels like a carefree and laid back exercise in pop songwriting. It turns out that the feeling wasn't a coincidence. Despite wearing the country-rock or alt-country tag, Dittmeier and company are more than just Flying Burrito Brothers clones searching out a lost highway. Instead, they navigate the sound of Americana with a bright and golden guitar tone that betrays the sepia-toned twang of most country rock bands. In fact, Dittmeier bristles at the suggestion.

"We have to say we are alt-country to give people a reference to what we are. When you say country, it gives people the idea that we are a pop-country act. I don't know — we don't play with bands that sound like us. I think we come from different backgrounds that aren't country music, so that helps."

Be sure to catch Slithering Beast's Midnight Royalty CD release show